Preview — Mao II
by Don DeLillo

Mao II

"One of the most intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America" (The New York Times), Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist. At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for"One of the most intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America" (The New York Times), Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist. At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for many years and enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms. Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover--and Bill's....more

Community Reviews

Don DeLillo is maybe my favorite novelist I would never recommend to anyone. Obviously, I don't mean he's not worth reading, but in order for his words to fulfill their collective mission in life, you have to read him the right way. Please believe me, I'm not some asshole who's saying you have to read him the way I do in how you interpret him or whether you like what you find, but you have to cast aside that "race for the finish-line" tendency we all have in us, and read uncomfortably close if yDon DeLillo is maybe my favorite novelist I would never recommend to anyone. Obviously, I don't mean he's not worth reading, but in order for his words to fulfill their collective mission in life, you have to read him the right way. Please believe me, I'm not some asshole who's saying you have to read him the way I do in how you interpret him or whether you like what you find, but you have to cast aside that "race for the finish-line" tendency we all have in us, and read uncomfortably close if you want to gain anything from your time investment. What I am saying, or at least trying to say, is that reading a DeLillo novel too fast (meaning: fast at all) would probably be about as satisfying as rapidly flipping through all the cable channels, but for hours and hours and hours on end. You wouldn't turn off the set and say to yourself "man, what a great show!", and unless you're just terribly weird, you probably wouldn't go around recommending it to people. It's always a special kind of gamble recommending a book to someone, and DeLillo is some sort of king of challenges in this regard. Because of all this, I am too skittish to bother with telling people to read him or buying his books for others. However, he was recommended to me, the copy of White Noise I first read was given to me by a friend, and I did absolutely love it. Thanks, Alan! I will not continue your legacy. You just got lucky.

Let's say you do want to read a short book for a long time. Hey, how about this one? It has all the stuff a DeLillo fan looks for: tarpit sentences, gorgeously sprawling theatrical scenes of terror and isolation and pack dynamics, jarring juxtapositions than somehow make you feel sane and understood, otherworldly, stilted dialogue, disturbingly authentic moments of body-on-body in all their gross and glorious and sometimes banal, individuals' thoughts bleeding into one another sometimes mid-paragraph, fighting and fist-shaking and fusing into some greater but never clearly identified truth, the sifting and blurring effects of cultural identity and historic events on the self. You against the world, you in the world, you and other people, you in other people. Crawl across this book like a snail, and so much awful-awesome will stick to you.

They all thought they were bungling and desolate and tormented but none of them ever wanted to do anything else but write and each believed that the only person who might possibly be worse off was another writer somewhere and when one of them mixed too many brandies and little violet pills or placed the nozzle of a revolver just behind the ear, the others felt both sorry and acknowledged.

The book jacket description is sufficient as far as plot, I suppose. Events do most definitely transpire, but as background noise to the internal wars of the characters, who experience them like you would a landscape from a car. Beyond the larger rages of the world, DeLillo's characters have this tendency to find themselves in moments of spontaneous intimacy with strangers, which would seem insincere if they didn't sometimes happen. I don't mean spontaneous intimacy like fucking in the alleyway behind a club, but rather intimacy of conversational tone, spontaneous familiarity, natural rapport, settling into a routine with each other without much fuss. Can you hear it marching in? Yes, it's personal anecdote time.

I met a Thai girl almost a decade ago who was blowing through town, and developed a shared attraction with this guy I knew, bit of a manwhore. They had their own little moment of spontaneous intimacy, like fucking in a bed after drinking at the bar, and then she left town. Of course, manwhore was transfixed with the notion of this beautiful, vivacious, exotic, adorably tiny, and (most importantly) temporary girl. She had other ideas. She showed up at his doorstep a week or two later with all her bags, having left her previously unspoken of, very traditional, very straight-laced, and very controlling husband two states or so away. The manwhore reacted just as you would imagine, and I ran into the girl (her name was Ta, for short) at a bar that night, sitting all alone, very intoxicated, very confused by manwhore's sudden change of heart regarding her, seemingly wholly unaware of both the total lack of social etiquette in her behavior, and her horribly optimistic misread of this fella and his intentions. Even despite my generally consuming cynicism, or maybe because of it, her melancholy naivete was just absolutely crushing to me. Oh, and she was hard up in that moment, having placed all her eggs in a basket that liked having as many holes as possible, if you know what I'm sayin'. I reluctantly told her she could stay with me for a night or maybe two, I guess. I went to class the next day, and came home to find every speck of my tiny apartment cleaned and organized, my kitchen full, and I mean FULL, of groceries, homemade Thai food set up on the counter, new sheets and pillows on my bed, and Ta there just grinning at me as I came in with my expression of both horror and amazement, as she's all "Welcome home, Kri-seee!" For maybe a month or maybe three, I have no fucking idea as time sort of suspends in these situations, she just...stayed. She slept in my bed and kicked me in her sleep, we sat foot to foot on the couch, her watching these terrible Thai pop star videos and compulsively pulling out her hair while I read or did homework, she shadowed me to class sometimes and made weird but strangely sincere observations about the art she saw on the projectors, I came home mid-day and even brought friends from school to marvel at the spectacle as she made everybody ridiculously lavish lunches and hopped around singing to herself like a little kid. We had our strange routine for a time, and though I generally require about 85-90% alone time and wanted to wring her neck on occasion because of this fact, it somehow just worked for us in that time, for that time. One day, she was just gone, leaving several hundred dollars behind for me that she had won playing blackjack at the Indian casino.

Like I said, these things happen, even to little ole homebody Oklahoma me on occasion. They happen to DeLillo's characters a lot. A scenario is even created in this book similar to the one described above, with the exception that everyone's screwing. Which is maybe why I just rambled about it. The weird points of human connection in life are the commonplace for DeLillo creations, and no wars or holy uprisings or terrorist bombings can take them away from that place, though the events of the world at large are forever running in the background, the small scenes providing a commentary on those greater pictures, and vice versa. And that's what Don DeLillo is all about. Even his tiniest observations will leave you looping your eyes over passages, which can make his books an awful long time. Some of the most rewarding time you can spend with a book in your hand. That's not a recommendation to read this particular book or this particular author. I don't do that. But I love this novel and this author a whole, whole lot. Maybe you will, too....more

A writer is always said to bring wisdom and knowledge to his readers, to give them guidance, clarity of mind by using stories and instances regardless of truth as exemplars. But can the writer do the opposite and inspire terror, chaos, and bewilderment? It is often said that a writer sacrifices himself for the better fortune of his readers. Writing should be a beloved practice to those who are enamored by words, by language, and sometimes by the ability“The cult of Mao was the cult of the book.”

A writer is always said to bring wisdom and knowledge to his readers, to give them guidance, clarity of mind by using stories and instances regardless of truth as exemplars. But can the writer do the opposite and inspire terror, chaos, and bewilderment? It is often said that a writer sacrifices himself for the better fortune of his readers. Writing should be a beloved practice to those who are enamored by words, by language, and sometimes by the ability of playing god and make-believe. That is not always the case. It is easily traceable in literary history that writers have the hardest time concentrating on their works. Indeed it is rather easy to write a few pages when inspiration hits you, but writing and rewriting hundreds even thousands of pages over a grueling stretch isn’t an attractive plight. Writers readily suffer fatigue, languor, creative blocks, and would often put off their work for great lengths of time. But then his suffering is assuaged the minute he publishes his work and people are inspired by what he painfully poured out of himself. But what if instead of inspiration, his horrors take hold of his prose and flow through his readers? What if he instills fear and uneasiness into their minds? And what if the book takes the form of a chimera that terrorizes both creator and receptor? In Christopher Nolan’s Inception he uses dreams to put in ideas into people’s heads. But in Don DeLillo’s Mao II, the obvious truth is revealed, in the real world, writing books take this function.

“What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. That danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous.”

In Mao II, Bill Gray, the world’s most renowned novelist, an aging dinosaur and an illusive sonofabitch firmly believes that he was born too late. He was of the idea that writers used to be the scale of the world’s moral balance and sometimes even the force the drives it off its axis. Books inspired fear, they served as catalysts of change. Most of the visionary books were banned; great writers were often murdered and burned on a stake. People in power didn’t like ideas people were getting from what they read. The Bible inspired great religious frenzy and turned lots of heathens into believers of Jesus Christ. Similar function goes for Islam’s Quran. And these works inspired a great many religious wars. The Greek Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle’s works inspired an intellectual revolution. The Malleus Maleficarum caused the deaths of thousands of forward thinking women. Mein Kampf was an idea that killed millions of Jews. Marx and Engle’s Manifesto started a movement so hated by the world. Oscar Wilde’s flair caused uproar and probably got him killed. D.H. Lawrence’s vulgarity made him a literary villain. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables gave the common people the feeling of power. Jose Rizal’s novels inspired the Philippine revolution. Even Nabokov’s Lolita gave rise to such a resounding cry of moral righteousness. But nowadays, definitely post 9-11, terrorists and acts of terror have taken hold over the populace and what was once a mass that was affected by literary ideas now moved to terror’s rhythm of fear and self preservation. The Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins of the world are now more known than the Garcia-Marquez and the Toni Morrisons. Even modern writers have not escaped the fate of fear. Salman Rusdie’s Satanic Verses shows how terrorism is encroached even to the influencers emeritus. A long time ago people read books and these chiefly inspired how they think, the choices they made. Nowadays people watch and listen to terror-dominated news and their mindset and life-choices are affected by what has happened. Books are now relegated as fantasy and escapism serving as a pastime rather than a critical tool of change, and it is no great wonder the biggest selling books are about vampires and masochistic sex. What was once a public that read and reacted on ideas and concepts now dwelled on reported events. The time of the thinking man is gone; the rule of the fear-addled reactionary homo-sapien is upon us. Is this the post-modern word we live in?

“He is saying terror is the what we use to give our people their place in the world. What used to be achieved through great work, we gain through terror. Terror makes the new future possible. All men, one man. Men live in history as never before. He is saying we make and change the history minute by minute. History is not the book or the human memory. We do history in the morning and change it after lunch.”

“Mao believed in the process of thought reform. It is possible to make by changing the basic nature of the people.”

Mao Zedong, the man who graces the novel’s title was not just a revolutionary leader; he was also a brilliant writer. As a youth he wrote well-regarded poems and several philosophical treatises on the subject of war, democracy and so forth. But what really symbolized Mao, aside from his images, was his Little Red Book that the Chinese people clamored for. Formally called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, this work was printed and sold by the millions because the populace wanted to learn and adapt the ideas of their leader. I am saying this because although Mao did commit many vile acts of terrorism, what propelled people to notice and revere him was not his actions but the idea he wanted to propagate.

“There is a longing for Mao that will sweep the world… eloquent macho bullshit.”

This novel of set pieces isn’t as coherent as I’d hoped it to be. It combines hazy, fragmented views on terror, on war, of the lone and of the mass, of writing and shaping and out of the disarray comes a piercing cry out of the rubble that should be heard in the shell-shocked world of today: fear me, fear the writer. DeLillo purposely fills the book with scenes that cause unease and he reminds the reader that an idea is still scarier than an act. That the mass can never be compelled by fear and terror unless it takes root in informed viewpoints that the individual must make on his own, and that when traced, everything comes back to literature. Thus when man realizes his errs, he shall see that terror does not come from explosions and bombs, but from letters and words. ...more

If you’ve tried DeLillo and didn’t get on with him this probably isn’t going to change your mind. All the familiar DeLillo hallmarks are present and correct – every character speaking in an identical voice, every character as intelligent and eloquent as the author; dramatic tension is hewn into the sentences rather than the plot; and it’s primarily cerebral in its appeal as opposed to emotionally engaging.

There are five players in Mao II. Bill is a famous reclusiv“The future belongs to crowds.”

If you’ve tried DeLillo and didn’t get on with him this probably isn’t going to change your mind. All the familiar DeLillo hallmarks are present and correct – every character speaking in an identical voice, every character as intelligent and eloquent as the author; dramatic tension is hewn into the sentences rather than the plot; and it’s primarily cerebral in its appeal as opposed to emotionally engaging.

There are five players in Mao II. Bill is a famous reclusive writer. The more he disdains any public persona the more attention he receives – there’s a poignant dramatisation of the Elena Ferrante situation here. You could say he’s held hostage by his reluctance to assimilate himself to the demands of celebrity. He is stalked to his remote hideaway by a fanatical fan, Scott. Scott ingratiates himself and becomes his personal assistant. Scott eventually picks himself up a lover, a waif he finds lost in a local beat up town. Karen is running from a religious cult she joined as a nineteen year old, she is also running from her family. The theme of the individual attempting to flee crowd mentality is reinforced through Karen. Then there’s Brita, a photographer, who is allowed to photograph Bill and taken to his hideaway in the dark, much as a journalist might be escorted to the burrow of a group of insurgents. Lastly there’s the French poet who has been taken hostage by a terrorist group in Lebanon and is kept in a tiny room with a hood over his head. Bill has come to believe the writer has been usurped by the terrorist as the prime forger of world narrative. And that they have achieved this by means of replacing the word with the mass produced image as the collective focus of debate. When Bill flies to London to take part in a reading of the French poet’s work the suggestion is made that he might be able to facilitate the release of the hostage if he meets with the terrorist group.

As usual with DeLillo’s books, Mao II was ahead of its time. This was written in 1990 when barely anyone had heard of Osama Bin Laden. Also, as is usually the case, DeLillo’s sentence writing achieves a more thrilling transcendence than any other living writer I know. I don’t think any novelist has made me think about and understand our modern world to the extent DeLillo has. He writes about the present as if with the eerie razor sharp lucidity of hindsight. What happens in his novels on a small scale invariably starts happening in the real world on a large scale years later.

Andy Warhol says this & perhaps because I'm a such a nonfan of his I was a super nonfan of this.

The novel infuses you with images and DeLillo attempts to do something wholly Warholesque with his own brand of literature. More discerning minds can tell me what that something is, and/or what specific effect it produces. The novel is also about: the indifference of society personified by crowds, the act of writing as a doppelganger for terrorism,"The secret of me is that I'm only half here...."

Andy Warhol says this & perhaps because I'm a such a nonfan of his I was a super nonfan of this.

The novel infuses you with images and DeLillo attempts to do something wholly Warholesque with his own brand of literature. More discerning minds can tell me what that something is, and/or what specific effect it produces. The novel is also about: the indifference of society personified by crowds, the act of writing as a doppelganger for terrorism, and about "messianic returns" to humanity. The ego of the writer is totally implanted here, and though super PRETENTIOUS, I guess I did fall in love with DeLillo's comment on new lit versus old: before, everything new was explored and challenged while the newer years carry less original ideas so the modern writer uses news of the apocalypse for inspiration. (Yup, true.)

DeLillo has his motifs. The limousine (from "Cosmopolis") is employed once again in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. His affinity for using only first names for all characters is damn whimsical. Mass hysteria stands in for individual paranoia and fear and the monster never EVER shows his actual face in a work by DeLillo.

Plot? thin threads but mostly about a writer and his assistants and how he is kind of a puppet (like the heroes (?) from the aforementioned "Cosmopolis" and the professor of "White Noise") but tries to redeem his terrorist acts of creating on the page by saving another lost writer. Very strange. There must be some poetry in the fact of that one missing writer is found and nudged into reading publicly the work of a fellow displaced writer.

I have a great deal of sympathy for DeLillo's protagonist, Bill Gray, alias Willard Skansey Jr. He has my fear of being over the hill. He, like me, talks to relative strangers more intimately than is warranted. I share his doubt that any of my accomplishments have even personal importance. And I really would prefer to spend my remaining days being ignored by the world.

On the other hand, Bill puts me off viscerally. His clipped conversThe Novelist as Substitute Terrorist (Or the other way round?)

I have a great deal of sympathy for DeLillo's protagonist, Bill Gray, alias Willard Skansey Jr. He has my fear of being over the hill. He, like me, talks to relative strangers more intimately than is warranted. I share his doubt that any of my accomplishments have even personal importance. And I really would prefer to spend my remaining days being ignored by the world.

On the other hand, Bill puts me off viscerally. His clipped conversational banter packed with urbane wit, his hapless set-up of his own professional and existential demise, his absence of credible motives for any actions he takes, his weird idea that the rise of terrorism has reduced the moral power of writers of fiction, and his compulsion to do something about that - all of it is alien and contrived. I'm left cold and unmoved in any direction.

There are many captivating phrases. This is DeLillo after all. But some appear to be nonsense: "We understand how reality is invented. A person sits in a room and thinks a thought and it bleeds out into the world. Every thought is permitted. And there's no longer a spatial distinction between thinking and acting." Is this a philosophy? A new understanding of the world? Or just a novelist's novelistic hubris?

Other of DeLillo's quips read like they came from Pseuds Corner in Private Eye Magazine: "... when the Old God leaves the world, what happens to all the unexpended faith?... When the Old God goes, they pray to flies and bottle tops." He also very much likes to bite the hand that feeds him, particularly that of publishers: "The secret force that drives the industry is the compulsion to make writers harmless." Indeed, that threat of the powerful writer must keep them up at night at Penguin.

The narrator's snobbishness is obvious:

"They are a nation, he supposes, founded on the principle of easy belief. A unit fuelled by credulousness. They speak half a language, a set of ready-made terms and empty repetitions. All things, the sum of the knowable, everything true, it all comes down to a few simple formulas copied and memorised and passed on ... This is what people have wanted since consciousness became corrupt."

Who is it, does one suppose, DeLillo is addressing? Not his readers surely. More likely the unread masses, at least those not having read DeLillo, including all those dead folk born after corruption but before the DeLillian Enlightenment .

And of course, authors don't fair much better. "If you've got the language of being smart, you'll never catch a cold or get a parking ticker or die," says his sarcastic protagonist who has a houseful of notes, drafts, proofs, corrections, and emendations of a book he refuses to finish for no clear reason. He's a lush, a lech, and an absent father who sleeps with his assistant's wacky Moonie girlfriend and thinks that having his photograph taken is equivalent to a notice of impending death. His apparent intention is to allow Lebanese terrorists to 'trade-up' on their literary captive Swiss poet by sacrificing himself. His life, as they say, is complicated. Mostly because his egotism appears unbounded.

References to Mao, Arafat, and Khomeini abound. I can't understand why. Are these the terrorists who have undermined the importance of Western fiction? If they have, does this imply that authors are compelled to involve themselves in terrorist liaisons and media-manipulation? "Great leaders regenerate their power by dropping out of sight and then staging messianic returns," notes one of the characters. And? Are great novelists included as great leaders? Someone involved with this novel apparently thinks such a pretentious conceit has merit. Good luck with that....more

Another of the second tier of DeLillo's books, this one talks of writer's block and of the crazy marriage cult of Kim Jo Pak's Unification cult. Bizarre and full of action, it is well-written and a page-turner. It is however one to read after the masterpiece of Underworld.

What is the role of fiction writers in world peace? This might as well be the aching question that this book tried to answer. Or offered to answer. That, for me, is what made this book different from other books about novelists as the main protagonist. That, for me, is the reason why I really like this book.

This is my 3rd Don DeLillo and he is still to disappoint. This does not have the in-your-face sadness of his Falling Man (3 days) because it is not about 9/11 but this is not as artsy as theWhat is the role of fiction writers in world peace? This might as well be the aching question that this book tried to answer. Or offered to answer. That, for me, is what made this book different from other books about novelists as the main protagonist. That, for me, is the reason why I really like this book.

This is my 3rd Don DeLillo and he is still to disappoint. This does not have the in-your-face sadness of his Falling Man (3 days) because it is not about 9/11 but this is not as artsy as the book that made me automatically buy a book whenever I see his name on the cover, The Body Artist (4 stars). There is no turning back. I will have to read all those 6 other DeLillo books that I have in my tbr shelf.

The story revolves around Bill Gray who is like Salinger, recluse and elusive. One day, he lets himself be photographed (like Salinger) it made him popular until he becomes involved as a spokesperson for a Swiss writer being held hostage in Beirut.

For me, my take on the story is this: novelists create dreams and this make them like "gods." Even if their works are not real, there are truths in them. Truths that are universal and timeless. That's why authors like Salinger or DeLillo (although he is not recluse really) are being read. With this impact on readers, they share a part in achieving something positive in this world. Because they speak to the hearts and minds of people, they are, in a way, maybe indirectly, responsible to common good like world peace.

This is a great book. My only small complaint is that DeLillo is fond of non-linear narration with frequent shifts on settings, time and characters. Had I not read "Falling Man" first I would not have enjoyed this as much as I did.

Thought provoking book. Intriguing characters especially Brita who is the photographer focusing on writers. She does not photograph other people except writers. What a novel idea.

As with Underworld, the opening prologue—based upon an actual occurrence—of the mass-wedding of young and youngish couples of the Unification Church, held in Yankee Stadium and performed by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, is one of the strongest points of the book. DeLillo excels at such portraits set to the page, crisply and potently capturing the atmosphere of this bizarre and fascinating spectacle, with its ordered ranks of veils and ties, the regimented structure and candle-row colors that deliAs with Underworld, the opening prologue—based upon an actual occurrence—of the mass-wedding of young and youngish couples of the Unification Church, held in Yankee Stadium and performed by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, is one of the strongest points of the book. DeLillo excels at such portraits set to the page, crisply and potently capturing the atmosphere of this bizarre and fascinating spectacle, with its ordered ranks of veils and ties, the regimented structure and candle-row colors that delineated the transformation of an intimate ceremony of personal commitment into a crowded and raucous affirmation of cultish charisma. After such a starkly adrenal opening, DeLillo then blurs and abrades with his initial meet-and-greet between reclusive author Bill Gray and Brita, a journalist who is bound and bent upon photographing every living major writer—and continuing through to the confusing ending in Beirut, which sees Brita apparently about to compound Bill's failure to spring a versifying hostage held by Lebanese terrorists. This is primarily a series of mobile and difficult dialogues—delivered by characters who all sound like Don DeLillo—centering upon the state of art, fiction, photography, and mass-phenomena in this, our modern age, when terrorism was on the verge of becoming the Next Big Thing—compared to fictional portraits or visual representations, a far more potent and pyrotechnic means of effecting changes in societies, of steering political discourse, of grabbing the world's attention and focussing it upon problems that were previously ignored. Where are we at when the authorial pen has been displaced in immediacy and influence by the kalashnikov and high-explosives? When murderous theatre proves the ablest way to advance one's political agenda, to broadcast in—and capture—the medium of the real?

Mao II was my introduction to Don DeLillo, read many, many years ago. I enjoyed it even while feeling it cooly kept me at a distance—its text, to me, a murky river whose current moved quickly and revealed little upon the first glance. I would actually like to return to this someday, especially in this new millennium featuring the Global War on Terror and that most horrific and course-changing of days: September 11th, 2001. I was impressed with the style and trappings of Mao II the first time around, while never believing I had fully grasped what DeLillo wished to get across—perhaps a second journey would leave me more appreciative of the author's prescience in gauging the future potentiality for Terror....more

This is a Typical DeLillo - which is by no means bad. On the contrary.

First, I'd like to say that DeLillo's writing style is as ornate and expressive as ever.

This is more of a rambling discussion, a loose connection of thoughts on crowds, mass movements, the Unification Church, writers, New York, baseball, terrorism, and post-modernism. Sometimes DeLillo goes for multi-page conversations, and sometimes for little aphorisms which you can repeat to impress your friends and sound wise.

Again, the usThis is a Typical DeLillo - which is by no means bad. On the contrary.

First, I'd like to say that DeLillo's writing style is as ornate and expressive as ever.

This is more of a rambling discussion, a loose connection of thoughts on crowds, mass movements, the Unification Church, writers, New York, baseball, terrorism, and post-modernism. Sometimes DeLillo goes for multi-page conversations, and sometimes for little aphorisms which you can repeat to impress your friends and sound wise.

Again, the usual caveat with DeLillo: it's not really a novel so much as it is a collection of elements with the most tenuous connection of plot. It may almost tempt you to call it 'dull' and give up, but then you're jerked awake by a turn of phrase or insight. His musings on crowds and mass movements are intensely fascinating. The Ayatollah and Mao and Reverend Moon scenes are probably the best in the book.

I could feel DeLillo grappling with something important as I read this book, trying to deliver something profound, and that feeling made me want to press on, to see where he was going, even though I found most of his narrative a slog.

There were astounding moments. The funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini was gorgeous prose. The discussion between Bill and George about the power of the terrorist to affect change was tense and convincing. Karen's time in the homeless shantytown was poetic and always shifI could feel DeLillo grappling with something important as I read this book, trying to deliver something profound, and that feeling made me want to press on, to see where he was going, even though I found most of his narrative a slog.

There were astounding moments. The funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini was gorgeous prose. The discussion between Bill and George about the power of the terrorist to affect change was tense and convincing. Karen's time in the homeless shantytown was poetic and always shifting. But nothing in Mao II was easy; DeLillo made us work for every piece of wonder he embedded in his text. And along with these moments of genius was the promise of something profound pushing me on.

DeLillo fulfilled his promise to me, but considering the myriad opinions concerning what Mao II was about, I am sure what I found profound is only one possibility.

So here's what Mao II was about for me: insignificance. Not the usual evocation of existential nihilism, but a workable insignificance in the face of our search for impossible significance. It wasn't telling us to give up because there is no meaning, but telling us to simply recognize that whatever meaning we find for ourselves is significant for that and nothing else.

DeLillo engages with issues and artifacts and concepts that our culture endows with the illusion of significance: architecture, the world trade center, terrorism and terror, belief, love, belief in love, religion, home and homelessness, art, the artist, photography, great men, and writing. Yes, even writing. All of it is insignificant beyond ourselves. And the search for significance in these things is equally insignificant.

It's a subtle shift from the nihilist perspective that nothing means anything, but the shift is a profound one (even if DeLillo is only adding to the voices of those who've already spoken about this possibility). It was the pay off I was hoping for. I am only sorry that it wasn't enough to make me love this book.

I wanted to love Mao II. But I'll have to cope with simply admiring it and its author. I've been afraid to engage with DeLillo. His reputation is daunting, and so are the issues he tackles. But now that I've begun I am confident that somewhere in his body of work is a book I will love as much as I admire this one. I hope that book is Libra. ...more

Mao II centers around two events: the emergence of a reclusive author in New York and a hostage crisis in Lebanon. That both events are treated with the glibness and breakneck pace of news cycles isn't, in and of itself, reason to praise this novel, even if you consider that DeLillo does so as a commentary. What makes Mao II great, then, is that he goes all the way with commentary on the media, inviting the reader into the world of the twenty-four hour news rush, making you eagerly await every nMao II centers around two events: the emergence of a reclusive author in New York and a hostage crisis in Lebanon. That both events are treated with the glibness and breakneck pace of news cycles isn't, in and of itself, reason to praise this novel, even if you consider that DeLillo does so as a commentary. What makes Mao II great, then, is that he goes all the way with commentary on the media, inviting the reader into the world of the twenty-four hour news rush, making you eagerly await every new update and feel as though you're part of something broader by following each post as it happens. If that wasn't enough, he uses the dark corners of the book as a place to put his understandable fear of what happens when the TV news gains too much influence and the people who watch are so caught up in the spectacle of events that they miss the broader picture, the driving forces behind them. Throw in a clairvoyant woman, a terrorist plot, and a brilliantly realized set piece about a mass Moonie marriage, and you've got better, sharper, smarter TV than most TV. ...more

This is the only book I've ever read that I wanted to start reading again immediately after finishing it. I have read his description of two people watching the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini a dozen times. I wish I could have written that. The description of the mass wedding at the start of the book is also remarkable.

DeLillo has always been good at capturing the way people actually talk -- syntax, cadence, etc.-- but his characters don't usually say things normal people say. They are always totally self-aware and generally pretty intelligent. They understand the psycho-socio-philosophical implications of lighting a cigarette; they get the significance of a half-second pause in a conversation. They can read each others' minds, finish each others' sentences. And this can be distracting, can take you right outDeLillo has always been good at capturing the way people actually talk -- syntax, cadence, etc.-- but his characters don't usually say things normal people say. They are always totally self-aware and generally pretty intelligent. They understand the psycho-socio-philosophical implications of lighting a cigarette; they get the significance of a half-second pause in a conversation. They can read each others' minds, finish each others' sentences. And this can be distracting, can take you right out of the book. But if you don't mind that (and I still haven't decided), DeLillo has a lot to offer....more

I feel very safe when I read Delillo. I know I am going somewhere worthwhile, and I know that I can trust him to get me there smoothly and gently, that the time will pass and the journey and destination and details will all be taken care of. This novel is, by turns, deeply real and entirely metaphysical, an eloquent portrait of a small collection of individuals and individual drives and pains, and an entirely artificial means for Delillo to explore principles of art and meaning-making within theI feel very safe when I read Delillo. I know I am going somewhere worthwhile, and I know that I can trust him to get me there smoothly and gently, that the time will pass and the journey and destination and details will all be taken care of. This novel is, by turns, deeply real and entirely metaphysical, an eloquent portrait of a small collection of individuals and individual drives and pains, and an entirely artificial means for Delillo to explore principles of art and meaning-making within the frame of larger political realities. It is a meditation on charismatic power and the function of literature in contemporary society, among other things.

I have heard that Delillo flirts with radical ideologies but rarely espouses them directly, preferring instead to allow their language and intentions to creep from the mouths of characters here and there. I was fascinated by those elements in this book - so potentially (falsely?) autobiographical at times. It is always dangerous to write about a writer, as all readers will secretly assume they see into the author him/herself. I think it is more likely, more useful, to see all characters, all situations, as products of the writer's mind, but not necessarily theses, not direct representations of belief or conviction, but merely maps of where that mind has been, seen in reflections and echoes and opposites.

Delillo's writer, Bill Gray - a character struggling with the nearly stereotypical writerly miseries of solipsism, doubt, and hatred of one's own work - has internalized the idea that writers are obsolete in the contemporary world. He decides that writers no longer hold the power to alter society's consciousness, cannot speak loudly enough or radically enough to create or catalyze change. Instead, the role of true belief and action has been taken over by the political concept of terror. Terrorists have become the only genuine voices of conviction and ideals that the world will listen to.

This idea is played out through a series of lucid and unlikely events that take on the glow and enchantment of one-act plays. Each is firmly rooted in the ground of the text, but has a meditative and inevitable quality that brings the reader in and out of the plot, rising and sinking along a fine line of abstraction and solidity. The writing is beautiful and familiar, the characters recognizable and strange, set against a backdrop of late 1980s and early 90s political iconography, and a thin running thread of Mao.

The novel can't compete with the war and death on the 24-hour news networks shown without remorse, we relay on the carnage seen on CNN so we feel lucking about drinking our Coke-a-Cola with out bombs falling on our heads feel lessEven better upon a second reading, DeLillo books are ones that need demand two readings you read and see things with such vivid clearity, a wedding party escorted by a Russian Tank.

The novel can't compete with the war and death on the 24-hour news networks shown without remorse, we relay on the carnage seen on CNN so we feel lucking about drinking our Coke-a-Cola with out bombs falling on our heads feel less guilty becouase we are aware of the injustice even when CNN makes Billions of dollars of showing death! We should step back perhaps, read more !...more

I am a fan of Don DeLillo's artistic ambition and his want to address ideas more profound than simple character study. When Tom Wolfe wrote his diatribe against MFA writing programs and accused them of passing along a tradition of meaningless, nonempathetic stories rather than work that addresses morality and social meaning, he undermined his own argument with his own bare-faced self-promotion of _The Bonfire of the Vanities_, a work that may in essence have fit his own ideal but was poorly struI am a fan of Don DeLillo's artistic ambition and his want to address ideas more profound than simple character study. When Tom Wolfe wrote his diatribe against MFA writing programs and accused them of passing along a tradition of meaningless, nonempathetic stories rather than work that addresses morality and social meaning, he undermined his own argument with his own bare-faced self-promotion of _The Bonfire of the Vanities_, a work that may in essence have fit his own ideal but was poorly structured and almost unreadable in the end.

But Wolfe had an interesting point, proof of which was the simple fact that his statements caused such ire and intellectual retaliation among the MFA community. In the end, Wolfe would have done better to have used DeLillo as his primary example of writing that aspires to his ideal. DeLillo writes about people, but in the broadest sense of the term. He dwells not only in his characters, which is often the stopping point for many short-minded fictioneers with an assumption that their characters are worth reading (which often means that they are not), but also what those characters mean to the society they are in. _Libra_ is a wonderful example of this, as is _White Noise_ and _Cosmopolis_. Even in works where DeLillo's representations remain as just representations and do not engage as characters themselves (_Ratner's Star_), I am always impressed with his artistic ambition. DeLillo has a lot to say about the world, both topically and philosophically. This book, _Mao II_, is one that dwells on many relatively recent events (the Reverend Moon mass wedding, Khomeni's death), but even when read in 2006, these events hold meaning to the central points DeLillo is out to address--the influence of mass character over singular character, and the effect of art on the human psyche (and in this book, he even allows terrorism to enter into the world of art).

_Mao II_ is a work of DeLillo nearly at his best. We deal with singular characters who resonate strongly off the page--there is Karen, a former Reverend Moon cultist who has been only partly relieved through deprogramming. There is Brita, a photographer who deals only writers as her subject. She manages to schedule a session with Bill, a legendary writer who has been self-reclusive and unsure about whether to relinquish his latest project onto the world. And there is his secretary/assistant/connection to the real world, Scott. Every one of these characters, and the characters to come as Bill is drawn into a plan to reveal himself at a benefit for a poet who has been kidnapped in Beirut, distinguish themselves through DeLillo's sharp and witty prose, but they also deal with philosophical concepts regarding society, indentity and art, and it is here that DeLillo is always at his finest. While in books like _The Names_, the characters overconsume the content and diffuse both, in _Mao II_, the characters are sharply intersting because of both their moments of sympathy and antipathy. In short, his characters feel fully fleshed out rather than spokespersons of philosophy, which was what dragged down books line _Ratner's Star_.

The work of any artist must be looked at in its entirety rather than by singular example. A great poet is not one who has written one great poem, but has written a canon of work that has sometimes produced godliness, often greatness, and sometimes total misses. DeLillo can be considered a great writer even in the misses, for what he tries to do often far surpasses the greatest work of mediocre writers who dwell too much in the immediate rather than the universal. _Mao II_ may not be one of his greatest works and may not be pondered and scribed over like _Underworld_ or _White Noise_, but it is a great book, and I think many a DeLillo fan will cherish it for its precision and its thinking. ...more

This novel is just about ideal for me as its themes combine photography (and the power of the image) with writing (and the role of the novelist). About 90% of my time is spent either taking photographs or reading.

The title of the book is derived from Andy Warhol's famous portrait of Mao Zedong, but the power of the image, especially of a portrait, is a dominant part of the story and it isn’t just Mao II that is discussed. Alongside images and novelists, the book also explores terrorism and crowdThis novel is just about ideal for me as its themes combine photography (and the power of the image) with writing (and the role of the novelist). About 90% of my time is spent either taking photographs or reading.

The title of the book is derived from Andy Warhol's famous portrait of Mao Zedong, but the power of the image, especially of a portrait, is a dominant part of the story and it isn’t just Mao II that is discussed. Alongside images and novelists, the book also explores terrorism and crowds. There are probably other themes you could pull out, but those seem to be the main ones.

Bill Gray is a reclusive writer with two significant novels under his belt. For reasons that are explored through the course of the book, he has never finished his next book: he has withdrawn and hidden himself away (think Thomas Pynchon without the output, or even, to a lesser extent, Delillo himself). He allows a photographer to come to him to capture his portrait, partly driven by the realisation that his seclusion has become a kind of captivity. He is looking for a way to escape. As events pan out, he visits New York and finds himself agreeing to travel to London to give a poetry reading on behalf of a writer held captive in Beirut. This offers him a chance to do what he may or may not have been planning all along: disappear completely.

There are other people involved in the story, but it is a limited cast. In an incomplete list, other than Gray and the photographer, Brita, there is Gray's assistant, Scott, and there is Karen. The opening pages of the book, a preface, describe a mass wedding in a baseball stadium organised by the Unification Church and presided over by Sun Myung Moon. Here is where we meet Karen as she is married to a Korean man she has just met and who was picked out for her by Moon. But, by the time the book starts properly, they are in separate countries and she is with Scott. This is one of several plot developments that Delillo does not explicitly describe until well after they have happened: the reader is left to work it out and then see the details emerge as the novel progresses.

What the mass wedding in the preface does is introduce us to the idea of crowds which is a repeating motif through the book as Delillo contrasts crowds and individuals (Gray is a novelist looking to reach a mass audience - perhaps, but we take time to explore Mao Zedong and Ayatollah Khomeini as well as Sun Myung Moon).

"The future belongs to crowds."

And

"The cult of Mao was the cult of the book. It was a call to unity, a summoning of crowds where everyone dressed alike and thought alike. Don’t you see the beauty in this? Isn’t there beauty and power in the repetition of certain words and phrases? You go into a room to read a book. These people came out of their rooms. They became a book-waving crowd. Mao said, 'Our god is none other than the masses of the Chinese people.' And this is what you fear, that history is passing into the hands of the crowd."

Crowds are effectively contrasted with Gray's determination to disappear, to become more and more isolated.

Crowds are also the targets of terrorists. It is an ongoing theme in Delillo’s novels to compare the roles of novelists and terrorists. Here we read:

"Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated."

And

"'For some time now I’ve had the feeling that novelists and terrorists are playing a zero-sum game.''Interesting. How so?''What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. The danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous.''And the more clearly we see terror, the less impact we feel from art.'"

Mao II was first published in 1991, but it makes a fascinating read from the other side of events like 9/11: at times it seems almost prophetic when read 25+ years later. Coincidentally, it was written around the time when Salman Rushdie was condemned by Ayatollah Khomeini. Delillo has said the book is not about Rushdie, but he has acknowledged the connection.

Without doubt, this is a stylised book. No one writes dialogue like Delillo writes dialogue (only Delillo could write in the middle of a conversation "Bill laughed in a certain way" and the reader know what he means) and the story seems deliberately set up to allow Delillo to explore some of these big themes. For me, it is not an emotional book, but it is one that you have to admire and which manages to be engaging despite its lack of emotion.

Just as an aside, I couldn’t help but notice this quote:

"If they could send a woman wearing stockings who might whisper the word “stockings.” This would help him live another week."

"'Say heat. Say wet between my legs. Say legs. Seriously I want you to. Stockings. Whisper it. The word is meant to be whispered … Use names,' I said."

The image as a way to bridge the gap between public and private, the contrast of crowds vs. individuals, the role of novelists compared with terrorists, the effect on a novel of its release into the public domain. A fascinating book to read even if, or perhaps because, the world has changed in the 27 years since its publication....more

The hardest thing about reading a Don Delillo novel is everything is quotable, every sentence he writes is a sentence only Don Delillo could've written, anyway you look at it. This is a short book, shouldn't take one more than a few days, but it's such a rich, deeply profound book that needs to be read slowly, with much concentration lest you miss out on all the cool stuff. Some of it isn't accessible, not right away, but when you mull over it, you do see it make sense. See it define your life sThe hardest thing about reading a Don Delillo novel is everything is quotable, every sentence he writes is a sentence only Don Delillo could've written, anyway you look at it. This is a short book, shouldn't take one more than a few days, but it's such a rich, deeply profound book that needs to be read slowly, with much concentration lest you miss out on all the cool stuff. Some of it isn't accessible, not right away, but when you mull over it, you do see it make sense. See it define your life somehow, coz that's what a Don Delillo novel does, it defines you, at least at some existential level. It's also a sad sad book, that will break your heart and leave you restless with longing, especially with what happens to all those cool Characters, but it's not all despairing because you can see it coming, I mean, the writer, Bill Gray is like Rorschach and his king-size death wish in Alan Moore's Watchmen. His struggle for total alienation is futile, but so enjoyable to follow him all through his metaphysical blundering.

I know I said a lot of the sentences are very quotable, but here are some of my favourite, at least the ones that resonate--

"We're all drawn to the idea of remoteness. A hard-to-reach place is necessarily beautiful. [...] And a person who becomes inaccessible has a grace and a wholeness the rest of us envy."

"The narrower the boundaries of my life, the more I exaggerate myself."

"The language of my books has shaped me as a man."

"There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live."

"The deeper I become entangled in the process of getting a sentence right in its syllables and rhythms, the more I learn about myself."

"This book and these years have worn me down."

"Does writing come out of bitterness and rage or does it produce bitterness and rage? Or both?"

"Time became peculiar, the original thing that is always there. It seeped into his fever and delirium, into the question of who he was."

"Through out history it's the novelist who has felt affinity for the violent man who lives in the dark."

"Survival means you lean how to narrow the space you take up for fear of arousing antagonistic interest and it also means you hide what you own inside something else so that you may seem to possess one chief thing when it is really many things bundled and tied and placed inside each other, a secret universe of things, unwhisperable, plastic bags inside plastic bags, and the woman is somewhere in there too, bagged with her possessions."

"What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. The danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous. [...] And the more clearly we see terror, the less impact we feel from art."

"The only way to be in the world was to write himself there. His thoughts and words were dying. Let him write ten words and he would come into being once again."

A mess. Opens with the reactionary premise that “the future belongs to crowds” (16) and descends from there. Something about a reclusive writer and another writer kidnapped by Lebanese Maoists. I suspect there is a concordance here between the artist who wishes to remain out of the public spotlight and the artist who is forcibly hidden. Dunno. The whole thing is kinda gross.

My copy is a first edition, which has a Pynchon blurb on the back--no surprise he likes it, considering P’s own alleged recA mess. Opens with the reactionary premise that “the future belongs to crowds” (16) and descends from there. Something about a reclusive writer and another writer kidnapped by Lebanese Maoists. I suspect there is a concordance here between the artist who wishes to remain out of the public spotlight and the artist who is forcibly hidden. Dunno. The whole thing is kinda gross.

My copy is a first edition, which has a Pynchon blurb on the back--no surprise he likes it, considering P’s own alleged reclusiveness. “When a writer doesn’t show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God’s famous reluctance to appear” (36). D, you can suck P off on your own time. Even worse: “The state should want to kill all writers. Every government, every group that holds power or aspires to power should feel so threatened by writers that they hunt them down, everywhere” (97). We gonna just have to get over ourselves, yo. But, even worser: “For some time now I’ve had the feeling that novelists and terrorists are playing a zero-sum game” (156)--“Beckett is the last writer to shape the way we think and see. After him, the major work involves midair explosions and crumbled buildings. This is the new tragic narrative” (157). This is just Marinetti. Barf.

Similar concern as in White Noise: "Because we’re giving way to terror, to news of terror, to tape recorders and cameras, to radios, to bombs stashed in radios. News of disaster is the only narrative people need” (42).

Lotsa weird stuff about Reverend Moon. Uhh, yeah.

Recommended for readers with their own cosmologies of pain, city nomads more strange than herdsmen in the Sahel, and persons with a need for internal dissent, self-argument....more

The premise: terrorists have taken the place of writers (specifically novelists) as shapers of the public consciousness. Timely subject, nearly fifteen years later. But it takes great skill to make a subject like this dull as dish water. But Delillo, unfortunately, succeeded in doing just this.

We have Bill, a reclusive novelist who has, after decades, allowed himself to be photographed. We have Brita, the photographer, who in my estimation should have been the focal point of the entire novel. AThe premise: terrorists have taken the place of writers (specifically novelists) as shapers of the public consciousness. Timely subject, nearly fifteen years later. But it takes great skill to make a subject like this dull as dish water. But Delillo, unfortunately, succeeded in doing just this.

We have Bill, a reclusive novelist who has, after decades, allowed himself to be photographed. We have Brita, the photographer, who in my estimation should have been the focal point of the entire novel. And we have the hangers-on, Karen & Scott who reminded me of a couple hippie squatters, living off Bill’s building legacy.

Within a few pages of meeting him, Bill lived up to every stereotype you’d expect of the stereotypical reclusive writer. When Brita shows up to take his picture, it only take a couple minutes for Bill to get on his soapbox and spend the next ten pages ranting about how the novelist has lost all power - a power he believes they’ve held for over a thousand years. This seems to play into the long held postmodern belief about the death of the novel, that the novel is already dead. (Yet they continued to write.) The whole thing was terribly one dimensional.

After that I had no more use for Bill.

Then we have Scott and Karen. We’re introduced to Karen in the book’s opening scene via a mass wedding. A kind of Jonestown in reverse. Instead of everyone killing themselves in a half-believed religious ecstasy, Karen and five thousand of her fellow religious fanatics are married by a man who resembles a Korean Jim Jones. We’re introduced to Karen’s parent, see the bulk of the scene from their perspective, yet never hear from them again. This reminded of the ill-advised way late 1800s and early 1900s novelists began their stories with a this-here-is-real setup, a buncha folks sitting around a fire, spinning yarns, then never returning to see how the tales they were spinning affected them. Still, the mass wedding was amusing in a Jerry Springer (or Morton Downey Jr. kind of way). And that was as amusing as Karen and Scott were. Scott was forgettable, completely.

That leaves Brita, the photog. After her initial meeting with Bill, maybe 40 pages into the novel, we don’t hear from her again until the end. The one interesting character in the book.

This novel is about images. It depicts images from different perspectives. The image that the author has of himself, the world, and terrorism. The images a photograph takes of the author, of war, and of children playing in a schoolyard. This novel is about the image an insecure person has of themselves, and the image a lost soul forms of the world around them. This novel divulges the truth through images, and the fear reflected in so many ways.

This book is easily one of my favourite from DeLillo’s oeuvre, the prose is on point, the ideas are thick and fast and genuinely interesting and DeLillo doesn’t drag it out too long. I’ve always felt he works best in the somewhat shorter form, the 150-400 page range, something like Underworld just didn’t work for me, there were a few sections I enjoyed but the book suffered from an undercooked and soggy middle, but in Mao II Don’s prose never wavers and he gets out just in time before the wholeThis book is easily one of my favourite from DeLillo’s oeuvre, the prose is on point, the ideas are thick and fast and genuinely interesting and DeLillo doesn’t drag it out too long. I’ve always felt he works best in the somewhat shorter form, the 150-400 page range, something like Underworld just didn’t work for me, there were a few sections I enjoyed but the book suffered from an undercooked and soggy middle, but in Mao II Don’s prose never wavers and he gets out just in time before the whole thing burns away.

In the dust-jacket’s blurb it says the story is an intimate story about faith, longing, and redemption. I didn’t feel a sense of redemption about this book, or even much of a discussion about faith or longing. There are overt themes about the nature of art and the artist’s role in a society “reduced to blur and glut”, the isolated nature of the artist, and whether art is mere entertainment or something deeper and more profound. DeLillo has crammed a lot in here, there are multiple POV’s where all these themes and questions are streamed through and I think for the most part it works, DeLillo’s prose rarely drops a beat and the whole time you’re aware you’re in the hands of a master at the top of his game, and even though the plot is a mostly failure I’d rather read a beautiful failure like this than just about anything that gets lauded nowadays.

The opening section is worth the price of entry alone, a brilliant account of a mass Moonie wedding which is then followed by the young bride’s (Karen’s) nascent religious journey through tough urban streets. This idea of giving yourself away to something and self-sacrifice is obviously brought up early in the book and runs throughout it in various contexts. And I do think that the idea of faith to an ideal, whether it be art or some wider political struggle, is one of the stronger elements of the book and one of the more interesting concepts it wrestles with.

Of course you don’t read DeLillo for the plot but as I mentioned before the plot really doesn’t go anywhere, the whole thing just falls apart and DeLillo is left awkwardly tying bows, as in the end Bill Gray dies somewhat peacefully and abruptly, the poet held by the terrorist cell essentially disappears and is rumoured to be changing hands across various organisations, the photographer Brita moves on to documenting terrorist leaders and the books ends as it started with the scene of a wedding.

The way they live in the shadows, live willingly with death. The way they hate many of the things you hate. Their discipline and cunning. The coherence of their lives. The way they excite, they excite admiration. In societies reduced to blur and glut, terror is the only meaningful act. There’s too much everything, more things and messages and meanings than we can use in ten thousand lifetimes. Inertia-hysteria. Is history possible? Is anyone serious? Who do we take seriously? Only the lethal believer, the person who kills and dies for faith. Everything else is absorbed. The artist is absorbed, the madman in the street is absorbed and processed and incorporated. Give him a dollar, put him in a TV commercial. Only the terrorist stands outside. The culture hasn’t figured out how to assimilate him.

Throughout DeLillo’s career he seems to have had a fascination with the terrorist outsider, that Beeb documentary he did was largely about the questions raised in this book and also Libra, and his work post-Libra seems dotted here or there with terrorist acts and a particular curiosity with the media’s portrayal of these acts and the cultural significance of these atrocities – the parallels between these preoccupations and his fascination with death are also worth noting.

In some ways DeLillo’s take of the terrorist as the outsider and not assimilated by culture seems kind of dated now with the rise of the religious fundamentalist terrorist in culture in recent years, particularly in mainstream media culture where the terrorist, while still horrific, is almost a caricature and more a political tool than some fascinating martyr.

Obviously the terrorist’s acts are still outside the cultural ideals of The West and this gives them their power “terror is the only meaningful act”, and I guess art in this regard is somewhat impotent in the face of what the terrorist can do and how they can come to dominate culture, and there is little doubt that the terrorist “dominates the rush of endless streaming images” as DeLillo describes, but indiscriminate murder will always have a degree of shock and power regardless of how it’s framed. The novel seems to bask in this self-deprecation and this is its weakness, DeLillo doesn’t seem to make a case for art and how much it has over terrorism – just to add to this train of thought, the German composer Stockhausen famously suggested that the attacks of 9/11 were the greatest work of art ever made and that art couldn’t touch them in terms of magnitude and impact (remarks that he later retracted).

Art moves in ways beyond simply horror or bafflement or even awe, the fact that art manages to move and stun and change you without relying on the nefarious tactics of terror is what makes it art and not just barbarism or some grave use of force. Art has a dignity and grace and humanity terror doesn’t have, this is art’s power....more

I once read an interview with DeLillo, where he claimed that he often liked to change or rearrange words in his sentences for the sound or effect it created, even if it ended up changing the meaning of the sentence entirely. For me, this just smacks of irresponsibility for someone held in such high literary esteem, and demonstrates his overriding pretentiousness as a novelist.

The characters in this novel speak without any realism, seeming to communicate only in profound aphorisms to pound home tI once read an interview with DeLillo, where he claimed that he often liked to change or rearrange words in his sentences for the sound or effect it created, even if it ended up changing the meaning of the sentence entirely. For me, this just smacks of irresponsibility for someone held in such high literary esteem, and demonstrates his overriding pretentiousness as a novelist.

The characters in this novel speak without any realism, seeming to communicate only in profound aphorisms to pound home the message of the book, and not one of them is at all likeable. I struggled on with it until I got about two-thirds of the way through, when I realised that I didn't care about any of them, or anything that happened to them, and thus it would be pointless to continue reading. Even when I skipped to the end to find out the fate of the "reclusive writer" Bill Gray, I still wasn't at all moved.

The only reason I picked up this book in the first place was because I'd heard the character was based on JD Salinger, but then Salinger's own work has so far failed to grab me in any real way, so maybe that should have been an indicator. I have yet to read a good book by DeLillo, though I have since seen worse examples of his work in "The Body Artist" - and I know it's a minor point, but Bill Gray, as a character name? Surely someone of DeLillo's stature can come up with something a little more imaginative than that......more

What I LikedThe writing in Mao II is powerful, stunning, and lovely. Each sentence is structured with care and perfection. Descriptions of mass events and roaring crowds are immersing. I don't know if I've ever rated something so low that was written so well, but I could never get into this book. I did not enjoy this read. And I will not come away a changed person from reading it. The profound message that DeLillo labored to pound into the reader didn't wash over me.

What I Didn't LikeI hated theWhat I LikedThe writing in Mao II is powerful, stunning, and lovely. Each sentence is structured with care and perfection. Descriptions of mass events and roaring crowds are immersing. I don't know if I've ever rated something so low that was written so well, but I could never get into this book. I did not enjoy this read. And I will not come away a changed person from reading it. The profound message that DeLillo labored to pound into the reader didn't wash over me.

What I Didn't LikeI hated the dialogue in this book. Every character's voice sounded the same, all extensions of DeLillo's own voice and opinions. There were almost no dialogue tags to the point where, when four or five people are talking at once, it's difficult and frustrating to gather who is saying what.

The novel was boring. The characters, dialogue, and storyline were all incredibly dull. The only thing enjoyable about the book was the pretty writing, which can only carry a book so far. I struggled painfully to make it through to the end. I would not have finished if the book was not a mandated read for my literature class. ...more

I was really into this book until about halfway through where the storytelling seemed to fall apart. I'm still not sure what happened to Bill, actually. I loved so much of the first half though, the characters, their histories, their insights, that I might just decide to pretend not to have read the last 100 pages.

Don DeLillo is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He currently lives outside of New York City.

Among the most influential American writers of the past decades, DeLillo has received, among author awards, a National Book Award (White Noise, 1985), a PEN/Faulkner Award (Mao II, 1991), and an AmericanDon DeLillo is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He currently lives outside of New York City.

Among the most influential American writers of the past decades, DeLillo has received, among author awards, a National Book Award (White Noise, 1985), a PEN/Faulkner Award (Mao II, 1991), and an American Book Award (Underworld, 1998).

DeLillo's sixteenth novel, Point Omega, was published in February, 2010....more